A Mississippi Tea Party organizer has his own perspective on the meaning of turning the other cheek

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August 13, 2014 9:26PM (UTC)

When it comes to saying crazy things, it's pretty hard to beat Mississippi Tea Partyer Tricia Raymond's claim that controversial right-wing journalist Charles Johnson was sent by God to save the United States. Unfortunately, Mississippi Tea Party chairman Roy Nicholson proved on Monday that he was more than up to the task.

According to a report in the Jackson Free Press, at the start of a speaking event in Flowood, Mississippi, hosted by Johnson, Nicholson delivered an opening prayer in which he asked Almighty God to do what Almighty God apparently does best: To "be violent against" establishment Republicans who disagree with Tea Partyers over how best to achieve their mutually agreed upon goals.

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“We ask for your blessing upon the conservatives in this state, that they might stand strong and firm," reportedly began Nicholson's prayer. "Father, we even ask for you to bless our enemies, and Lord they are truly our enemies that head the Republican Party and the whole political establishment."

Nicholson's idea of "blessing" one's enemies, however, is a bit strange. He continued:

We’re asking, Father, for two things. We’re asking, Father, that you would expose them, set division amongst them, set them one against another, bring confusion and fear into their camp, into their thinking, for the purpose of pulling them down, for casting them down out of their high offices and reducing them, Lord, to having no power in this state. So, Lord, that you might raise up and seek the righteous in the positions of power that this state might once more be a state that honors you in all that it does.

Father, we’re asking that in all of the tribulations were asking you to bring upon them, that it would work change in their heart — that you would use it to bring true Godly sorrow, that they might truly repent for their iniquity and their wickedness, for that they would be restored to you, that you would have honor in the state of Mississippi for the great works that you’ve done in correcting and purifying the government and rescuing and saving the worst of us.

Needless to say, Nicholson's remarks were greeted with approval — certainly nobody voiced any issues with Nicholson's asking for God to make his fellow Republicans miserable. Maybe that's because they're familiar with Nicholson's previous work; according to Talking Points Memo Nicholson once asked God to protect the nation from the "criminal invaders" in Washington, D.C.